U-HE Hive

To make your tracks sound unique, you need a synth that’s powerful and adaptable but doesn’t blind you with science. Hollin Jones gets together with U-He’s Hive…

Choice 9/10 MusicTech

German developer U-He has been steadily growing its stable of software instruments and effects over recent years and the latest is Hive, a soft synth that’s designed to be light on your CPU and easy to use even for beginners. It comes in all major formats for Mac and PC and will run on operating systems that have been more or less abandoned by most software, as well as the latest versions of Mac OS X and Windows.

Look and feel

Although the synth looks quite busy, it’s been designed to operate as far as possible in a single window to cut down on the need to open lots of separate sections. Thanks to some clever workflow design, it’s rather easier to navigate and work with than an initial glance might suggest, and the colour scheme is easy on the eye. At its heart are two oscillators, each with a sub oscillator and a full set of controls. Oscillators can be set to mono, poly, duo or legato modes, with up to 16 voices of unison. The osc sections, like most other parts of the synth, have dropdown menus attached that give you access to presets for each section. So it’s possible to call up a preset for any section rather than having to alter the whole instrument using a master preset. This is something that’s being used more often in soft synths, and it’s great from a user perspective. You can, of course, save section presets of your own too.

READ MOREPurchase options below

Find the complete article and many more in this issue of
MusicTech
-
Sep-15

About MusicTech

It’s celebration time here at MusicTech as we reveal our 150th issue! quite a milestone we’re sure you’ll agree. What an issue we’ve got to celebrate.
First we’ve compiled the 150 best gear, studios, quotes and tips from the last 150 issues of MusicTech and we sit down for chats with studio legends Tony Visconti and Bob Clearmountain. We’ve also got a whole host of tutorials, reviews and a brand new feature looking at the six ways to save time when recording.